How to Sell the Planet Mars to a Private Company

Updated on February 13, 2015

Why?

I suppose the first question that might occur to some is: Why sell Mars at all? Isn't NASA doing a fine job running all over the planet with high tech dune buggies?

Yes, NASA is doing some fine research on Mars and other places in space. However, during certain budget deliberations the notion has arisen of saving money by severely cutting the funding that supports our current Mars missions.

Say what?

We have a current, operating mission on Mars and someone wants to stop funding it?

Yes, Yes they do.

Should Have Seen It Coming.

As much as I would love to give a boatload of semi-plausible excuses, the fact is, I should have seen that one coming. After all, I myself have argued repeatedly that the government does too much and spends too much. Sooner or later there was the danger that one of those idiots in Washington might listen. Wouldn't you know that they would pick the worst possible moment when there is an active mission they can hold hostage?

Mars for Rent

Well there is a way to tell the politicians to get lost and keep the Mars mission active. Do what they do with stadiums all over America. Sell advertising rights. Have corporate sponsors keep the mission alive by allowing them to advertise their support of the mission.

The Mars Collective

Or for those who do not want to go whole hog on making Mars a commercial enterprise, we could have some sort of public offering of shares or pledges or whatever and let the public at large directly and voluntarily participate in funding the Mars mission. The pledges or shares could be restricted to American citizens or they could offered to the whole world.

Sell Holes

One of the things Mars has in an abundance is craters. So we could auction off naming rights for craters. We could sell holes in the ground. Each hole could be named by the buyer for up to one year. Then another auction happens and the crater could be resold.

Buy Martian Bonds!

Given the lighter gravity, the different materials, and special conditions on Mars, we should be able to get a group of investors to buy Martian bonds or stock shares in the hopes of making some money off Mars. Mars could be used to create fuel or medicine or it could be used as a staging area for missions to the rest of the solar system.

Experiment on Mars

There are any number of experiments that folks want to do that Mars might be a candidate for:

1) Terraforming. What do you really need to make an alien planet human habitable?

2) Energy creation. Can we create a huge power station that could beam power back to earth? If that isn't practical is there some material like helium 3 that can be profitably shipped back to earth?

3) We need a place to try out self replicating robot technology. We would let the robots build other robots as well as factories on Mars.

Colonize Mars

We already have dozens of people prepared to die on Mars. Their fellow citizens should be delighted to fund the enterprise. Especially if we can get Putin and whatever idiot is running North Korea into the ground to go to Mars and not come back!

Revitalizing Space Exploration

Some suggest that the US space industry could use a shot in the arm. We don't even maintain a current way to ferry people and supplies to the International Space Station anymore. Instead we rely on the Russians to do this for us. As everyone knows, we do not always see eye to eye with the Russians so putting all our eggs in that basket is less than prudent.

It has been suggested that putting up Mars for sale could generate 500,000 jobs in the space industry. Lord knows we could use a half million more high tech jobs!

Nuts and Flakes

We could even squeeze some cash out of the nuts and flakes who insist that there is a face on Mars, or that there is a cache of alien technology on Mars. We will tell these nimrods that with their funding we could go to Mars and look for Martians--or whatever. We might even spare an intern to go looking for the Canals of Mars or the moons of Barsoom or whatever, but the rest of the cash would be used to support the primary mission objective of making Mars turn a profit!

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By Notodoris_minor.jpg: Shek Graham from Cairns, Australia Grapevinesnail_01.jpg: Jürgen Schoner Chelidonura_varians.jpg: Steve Childs from Lancaster, We have a name for snails without shells. We call then slugs....

It is downright amazing and rather sorry that we have to rely upon the Russians to get us into space these days. I like your ideas! All kinds of up votes including funny.

Au fait 20 months ago from North Texas

I have a great idea for funding space exploration and experiments. Why don't we stop giving the wealthy who have more money than their 15th generation great grandchildren could ever spend, tax cuts?

Indeed, why don't we start taxing the loafers, moochers, or whatever you might call them, the ones who have inherited their gazillions, and who have never worked a day in their lives, and who pay not a penny in taxes in many cases.

Did you know that during the Eisenhower administration the highest tax bracket was 92%? Things were good then, even for the people in that tax bracket. Now the highest tax bracket is 39.6 for anyone that still has income to tax after all the loopholes given to the wealthy. Many millionaires pay no taxes. More than 7,000 of them paid not a penny in income taxes in 2011. I don't have newer figures, sorry, but I'm sure with all the tax cuts they keep getting there are lots more wealthy moochers.